The myth of never enough and the insatiable hunger.

Tantalus myth, insatiable hunger, and remembering the agency and freedom of presence.

The other day, I was in a sing-along circle at Fairfield House, where I live now. A woman was telling the myth of Tantalus, a classic tale from Greek mythology. It tells the story of a king named Tantalus who killed one of the gods' sons, Pelops, and served him as a meal to test the gods' omniscience. In the myth, the gods became so angry with him that they punished Tantalus by keeping him in the underworld eternally. His punishment was to be submerged in water up to his chin with fruit trees laden with delicious fruit hanging just above his head. Whenever he tries to drink, the water recedes; whenever he tries to eat, the branches pull away. He is forever trying to reach food and water, but never gets any. He is punished by eternal thirst and hunger.

As I listened to her, I got chills up my spine and neck. A wave of electricity traveled from my feet to my left ear, creating a tingling sensation that spread across my cheeks. I was reminded of a remarkable and terrifying dream I had the other night when I was in Crete:

I’m eating, and eating, and eatin a bunch of food. I can not stop eating. I’m unstoppably hungry. An experience of being unsatisfied, perturbed and seeking. I’m eating furioslly, from vegetables, cheese, pies, fruits, all kinds of them, even dragon fruit, which is something I never tried, to meats, sweets, fast food. All.

I’m in a big living room in a palace, where the food is placed on a big table, about 5 meters long and 2 meters wide. At some point, I want to go outside. I look at the window, its sunshine, the trees has their leaves slighly dancing with the soft wind. Several people are downstairs in the garden, dancing, playing, eating.

I realize I’m hungry for something else than food. I decide to go downstairs. I walk to the door, and try to open it. It is locked.

A robotic voice out of the microphone on the left side of the room says “you are allowed to leave only after you eat all this food”. I start desperately grabbing food after food and stuffing my mouth. When I grab a piece of any of the food at the table, it is automatically and scarily replaced. I’m alone at this endless food table eating this never ending food, that in any terms satisfy me.

I wake up sweating and scared.

The echo between the image of Tantalus in the underworld and the sensation I experienced in this dream reveals insatiable hunger, unquenchable thirst, compulsive reaching.

This makes me wonder how often I act out of conditioned wanting. Where does it come from what I want?

A ghost of desire that could never be satisfied. Eating, eating, and eating—food, experiences, healing, people’s attention, and information—without really experiencing anything. Without being deeply nourished for what is ingested. A hunger that nothing on the table can satisfy.

Something about the myth and the dream weave together in me now. The place where there is a choice to step out of survival and the endless cycle of seeking satisfaction outside myself while ignoring the quiet voice that says: this is the way for now. Here.

Lately, I’ve been exploring the question: What am I eating when I eat sugar What is that I’m really hungry for? What is the meaning I attach to a bar of chocolate?

I’m discovering that some of the meaning is confort and safety. When I eat sugar my body, for at least some minutes, relax. Sometimes I miss sweetness in my life, in other aspects than food. I’m hungry for touch, for silence, for poetry, for soil, for laughter.

The punishment of Tantalus wasn’t just the eternal hunger.
It was the illusion that the fruit and water were the solution.
The loop of reaching for something outside, instead of turning inward toward the deeper thirst.